hardinparamedic:We, in the modern world, have become unacustomed (thankfully) to the scenes that plagued the United States in the 1920s and 30s, namely of Children's hospitals overflowing with people dying from diseases like Diptheria, Polio, and Whooping Cough. In a way, vaccines therefor have become a victim of their own success.

sweet-daddy-2:There were no MMR vaccines when I was a kid. We hard barely gotten the polio vaccine when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. Every one I grew up with suffered the measles, mumps, and chicken pox with no lasting effects.

You got the polio vaccine, and polio is now close to eradication.

Measles was going the same way, until a quack and some media vampires stirred up some false panic about it.

While I strongly agree with preventive vaccines, are the childhood diseases of my youth more dangerous today?

No, they're just as dangerous as they've ever been. That none of your peers suffered permanent damage is pure luck.

One of the leading causes of mental retardation was the viral encephalitis from the measles. I think that a lot more people would be more willing to immunize their children if they really knew how terrible the consequences could be and that it's not just some skin rash.

The UK could have avoided much of this by allowing the individual vaccines on the market. But government hates choice. It's their way or else or their way or the highway. Some people chose the highway in this matter, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't have chosen something different had there been free choice in the market.

hardinparamedic: Like, for example, having an anti-vaxxer parent learn first hand that death or recovery are not the only two outcomes of Vaccine-preventable diseases. Sometimes, they just live their lives with crippling neurological disabilities thanks to Measles Encephalitis.

As opposed to the children and people who get crippling neurological disabilities or killed due to the vaccines? Not to mention cancers (SV40, Polio vaccine) and other problems due manufacturing mistakes (usually seen in the third world causing reproductive issues). I mention this because people use rare events to justify vaccination but disregard equally, more, or less rare events due to vaccination. People pretend vaccination is risk free and that's just plain wrong. Vaccines are not universally safe and as effective as people pretend they are and that includes the political and liability processes which surround them which disregard obvious adverse reactions. (government took over liability of vaccines and uses its power to tell people harmed 'tough shiat')

Furthermore vaccines are seen as a tool to do social engineering. (Listen to Bill Gates on population control if you don't believe it)

Ultimately people should make informed choices for themselves, but because government is involved that's not allowed. Instead we are to trust the centralized one-size-fits-all management of a few people with their own economic, social, and political agendas with our lives. Too bad we can't have a market which would push towards ever safer, less toxic, better made, and more effective vaccines and other methods of disease prevention.

oh no, a few parents were inconvienced and might have missed some work (get back to work, drone!), and a few kids missed a few days of school, during which they felt ill.

is it bad that a child felt ill? it doesn't build character, it scars them for life, right? like... it's better to be afraid of your child riding a bike and falling down and skinning a knee and then getting raped by pedophiles, when that child could be happily at home playing xbox and eating cookies.

is it bad that the parents missed work? i'm thinking this is the problem here...

leadmetal:As opposed to the children and people who get crippling neurological disabilities or killed due to the vaccines?

And what are the children that have this happen to them again? Oh, wait. You mean Hanna Pooling, don't you, who was killed after a vaccine reaction which exacerbated an underlying and as-yet unknown genetic mitochondrial disorder that would have killed her anyway?

Or are you talking about the 1:1,000,000 chance of suffering a serious adverse reaction to a vaccine among the general population?

Or are you talking about the now absolutely, utterly, and repeatedly disproven link between vaccines and developmental disorders, mercury poisoning, and other issues which are repeated ad nauseum?

leadmetal:Not to mention cancers (SV40, Polio vaccine) and other problems due manufacturing mistakes (usually seen in the third world causing reproductive issues)

Do you have links to scientific research which links SV40 or the Polio vaccine to cancer? Or links "manufacturing mistakes" to "reproductive issues"?

leadmetal:I mention this because people use rare events to justify vaccination but disregard equally, more, or less rare events due to vaccination. People pretend vaccination is risk free and that's just plain wrong.

Uh, life-long disability and death from vaccine-preventable diseases are far more common than adverse, life-threatening reactions of vaccines. And no one pretends that "vaccination is risk free", period. No drug, or biologically active substance has no risk. The key here is informed choice, not fear-mongering. Your child is far more likely to suffer or die from a VPD than they are from the side effects of that vaccine. In addition, some vaccinations, like HPV, will prevent that suffering and slow death far, far from the point it is given.

leadmetal:government took over liability of vaccines and uses its power to tell people harmed 'tough shiat')

leadmetal:Furthermore vaccines are seen as a tool to do social engineering. (Listen to Bill Gates on population control if you don't believe it)

leadmetal:The UK could have avoided much of this by allowing the individual vaccines on the market. But government hates choice. It's their way or else or their way or the highway. Some people chose the highway in this matter, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't have chosen something different had there been free choice in the market.

Why, exactly? So children can unnecessarily suffer through additional needle jabs, pain, and anxiety? Oh, and a greatly increased cost. Andrew Wakefield anufactured a disease, and manufactured the evidence for that disease not only to bring his own single vaccine to the market, but to create the evidence that solicitors paid him for to sue vaccine manufacturers. The UK allowed itsself to be swept up in a panic without asking hard questions and looking at research which could not even replicate Wakefield's studies.

leadmetal:Too bad we can't have a market which would push towards ever safer, less toxic, better made, and more effective vaccines and other methods of disease prevention.

Or it COULD be the fact that you're touting all these talking points indicate that not only do you have no idea what you're talking about, but you've bought into anti-vaccination talking points made by people who can't even understand basic tenants of pathology and toxicology.

Like, for example, having an anti-vaxxer parent learn first hand that death or recovery are not the only two outcomes of Vaccine-preventable diseases. Sometimes, they just live their lives with crippling neurological disabilities thanks to Measles Encephalitis.

We, in the modern world, have become unacustomed (thankfully) to the scenes that plagued the United States in the 1920s and 30s, namely of Children's hospitals overflowing with people dying from diseases like Diptheria, Polio, and Whooping Cough. In a way, vaccines therefor have become a victim of their own success.

Tell ya what - my daughter was raised with many alternative or hippie belief systems and environments. Most of the kids were unvaccinated and top of the chart healthy.If children are breast fed and raised in a healthy environment they don't have these issues."Herd" immunity is hysterical bullsh*t.

I was vaccinated and still got measles. It's quite rare but not unheard of, and I would happily kick up the arse any parent who didn't have measles themselves (because their parents weren't idiots) and chooses not to vaccinate their child. I remember the utterly terrifying day when I couldn't see properly. It righted itself, but scary for an 8 year old.

I don't think anyone at my school wasn't vaccinated, it's just something that everyone got via the NHS and measles and mumps were rare. Our GP thought I may have been infected in hospital as there were a few kids from outside Europe in the children's ward when I was there and they probably weren't vaccinated. Herd immunity is really important.

Thanks to all the responders to my question. Even the ones who seemed to miss my statement of believing in vaccinations. ladyfortuna was the most gracious. To the others: I have believed for many years in seatbelts, sober operators, lifejackets, and other safety measures.....including quick, deadly, armed response to those who walk on my lawn.

Like, for example, having an anti-vaxxer parent learn first hand that death or recovery are not the only two outcomes of Vaccine-preventable diseases. Sometimes, they just live their lives with crippling neurological disabilities thanks to Measles Encephalitis.

We, in the modern world, have become unacustomed (thankfully) to the scenes that plagued the United States in the 1920s and 30s, namely of Children's hospitals overflowing with people dying from diseases like Diptheria, Polio, and Whooping Cough. In a way, vaccines therefor have become a victim of their own success.

Tell ya what - my daughter was raised with many alternative or hippie belief systems and environments. Most of the kids were unvaccinated and top of the chart healthy.If children are breast fed and raised in a healthy environment they don't have these issues."Herd" immunity is hysterical bullsh*t.

Yep. And I grew up riding around standing up in the front seat of a Ford station wagon as did many of my peers. If parents are careful and drive a safe speed, they don't die in car accidents.

As Sparta said to Philip of Macedon, "If."

I'm sure in your perfect world, all parents would raise healthy children in ideal environments, and nobody would be exposed to nasty viruses, and they would all be unvaccinated and not need herd immunity. And indeed they would not, until the day which would inevitably come, sooner or later, when they would come into contact with someone who had a case of measles or mumps or polio which your community was not vaccinated against; and then it would rip through you like a wildfire through the drought-stricken Southwest.

This idea that nobody needs to vaccinate their kids because so few people get crowd diseases any more, and that herd immunity isn't necessary any longer, kind of overlooks two very important factors in our global society: No disease except smallpox has been eradicated, so they all still exist; and we are, in fact, a global society. Your unvaccinated, top-of-the-chart healthy, breast-fed child is only safe from crowd diseases in the US because so few people IN AMERICA don't have them. That is not true of anyplace else in the world. So a person from Thailand gets off the plane in Seattle at the same time as your healthy kid is flying to Los Angeles to start college, and guess what? Now she's got measles that she wouldn't have been at risk for if only she'd been vaccinated.

Sure, she's got a good chance of complete recovery, since she's still in America--but she didn't need to get measles AT ALL, now, did she? Enough people like this, and we have a measles epidemic. Which I suppose is fine with people who think it won't happen to them or their healthy kids, because nobody dies of measles anymore, right?

sweet-daddy-2:Thanks to all the responders to my question. Even the ones who seemed to miss my statement of believing in vaccinations. ladyfortuna was the most gracious. To the others: I have believed for many years in seatbelts, sober operators, lifejackets, and other safety measures.....including quick, deadly, armed response to those who walk on my lawn.

Those of you that haven't worked in an emergency room could be quick to use your anecdotal non-occurences as proof that bad things don't happen to people. Why wear seat belts? Why get vaccines? Etc.

But that's idiocracy. Talk to us who've seen people go through their windshields, or have heard the flip side: "if those air bags hadn't gone off I'd be dead." Likewise, sit for a few years with the pediatricians who see the kids permanently brain damaged by their parents' intent to ignore science in favor of defiance and revolution and "self-expression."

You know, you can skip your medicines and your self-care when you're an adult. But when you make your children intentionally defenseless in the face of preventable horribleness, it's no different than running up to the car before they leave and unbuckling their seat belt.

"What? Plenty of people ride fine without belts and I didn't wear a belt when younger. Therefore..."

dmax:sweet-daddy-2: Thanks to all the responders to my question. Even the ones who seemed to miss my statement of believing in vaccinations. ladyfortuna was the most gracious. To the others: I have believed for many years in seatbelts, sober operators, lifejackets, and other safety measures.....including quick, deadly, armed response to those who walk on my lawn.

Those of you that haven't worked in an emergency room could be quick to use your anecdotal non-occurences as proof that bad things don't happen to people. Why wear seat belts? Why get vaccines? Etc.

But that's idiocracy. Talk to us who've seen people go through their windshields, or have heard the flip side: "if those air bags hadn't gone off I'd be dead." Likewise, sit for a few years with the pediatricians who see the kids permanently brain damaged by their parents' intent to ignore science in favor of defiance and revolution and "self-expression."

You know, you can skip your medicines and your self-care when you're an adult. But when you make your children intentionally defenseless in the face of preventable horribleness, it's no different than running up to the car before they leave and unbuckling their seat belt.

"What? Plenty of people ride fine without belts and I didn't wear a belt when younger. Therefore..."

We should have some sort of a modern-day leper or pariah colony where these people and their families can do whatever they like, but not around the rest of us.

Like, for example, having an anti-vaxxer parent learn first hand that death or recovery are not the only two outcomes of Vaccine-preventable diseases. Sometimes, they just live their lives with crippling neurological disabilities thanks to Measles Encephalitis.

We, in the modern world, have become unacustomed (thankfully) to the scenes that plagued the United States in the 1920s and 30s, namely of Children's hospitals overflowing with people dying from diseases like Diptheria, Polio, and Whooping Cough. In a way, vaccines therefor have become a victim of their own success.

Tell ya what - my daughter was raised with many alternative or hippie belief systems and environments.

Have you got custody of her from the idiot's that raised her thus far yet?

Most of the kids were unvaccinated and top of the chart healthy.

If only there were hundreds of years of study of individual cases, and studies of medical issues in groups.

Perhaps we could call them "medicine" and "epidemiology".

It's such a shame that no-one has ever considered studying it out.

If children are breast fed and raised in a healthy environment they don't have these issues."Herd" immunity is hysterical bullsh*t.

If only there were hundreds of years of study of individual cases, and studies of medical issues in groups.

Perhaps we could call them "medicine" and "epidemiology".

It's such a shame that no-one has ever considered studying it out.

/Yes, I repeated the same paragraph.//Increases the chance that you may read, and understand it.///I'm not hopeful.

iron de havilland:AbbeySomeone: hardinparamedic: Sometimes, the old ways are the best.

Like, for example, having an anti-vaxxer parent learn first hand that death or recovery are not the only two outcomes of Vaccine-preventable diseases. Sometimes, they just live their lives with crippling neurological disabilities thanks to Measles Encephalitis.

We, in the modern world, have become unacustomed (thankfully) to the scenes that plagued the United States in the 1920s and 30s, namely of Children's hospitals overflowing with people dying from diseases like Diptheria, Polio, and Whooping Cough. In a way, vaccines therefor have become a victim of their own success.

Tell ya what - my daughter was raised with many alternative or hippie belief systems and environments.

Have you got custody of her from the idiot's that raised her thus far yet?

Most of the kids were unvaccinated and top of the chart healthy.

If only there were hundreds of years of study of individual cases, and studies of medical issues in groups.

Perhaps we could call them "medicine" and "epidemiology".

It's such a shame that no-one has ever considered studying it out.

If children are breast fed and raised in a healthy environment they don't have these issues."Herd" immunity is hysterical bullsh*t.

If only there were hundreds of years of study of individual cases, and studies of medical issues in groups.

Perhaps we could call them "medicine" and "epidemiology".

It's such a shame that no-one has ever considered studying it out.

/Yes, I repeated the same paragraph.//Increases the chance that you may read, and understand it.///I'm not hopeful.

hmm. Perhaps if I had not studied medicine or epidemiology, or better yet, neuroepidemiology

the801:oh no, a few parents were inconvienced and might have missed some work (get back to work, drone!), and a few kids missed a few days of school, during which they felt ill.

is it bad that a child felt ill? it doesn't build character, it scars them for life, right? like... it's better to be afraid of your child riding a bike and falling down and skinning a knee and then getting raped by pedophiles, when that child could be happily at home playing xbox and eating cookies.

is it bad that the parents missed work? i'm thinking this is the problem here...

CSB1: I got chicken pox at age 17. My temperature rose over 102 F and dozens pustules formed everywhere, no matter how annoying the location. I still have one scar from the attack. It could have been worse...

CSB2: My boss caught the chicken pox at about the same time that his mother died. He was 40 years old. It attacked his liver, and he needed a transplant.

If chicken pox hits during elementary school, usually it's just mild discomfort and a week or two off school waiting for the pustules to scab over. If it waits, you'll be bedridden, covered with itchy pustules in unmentionable places and it could kill you. Then you get to play the Shingles Lottery as you grow older or undergo severe stress.

Like, for example, having an anti-vaxxer parent learn first hand that death or recovery are not the only two outcomes of Vaccine-preventable diseases. Sometimes, they just live their lives with crippling neurological disabilities thanks to Measles Encephalitis.

We, in the modern world, have become unacustomed (thankfully) to the scenes that plagued the United States in the 1920s and 30s, namely of Children's hospitals overflowing with people dying from diseases like Diptheria, Polio, and Whooping Cough. In a way, vaccines therefor have become a victim of their own success.

Tell ya what - my daughter was raised with many alternative or hippie belief systems and environments. Most of the kids were unvaccinated and top of the chart healthy.If children are breast fed and raised in a healthy environment they don't have these issues."Herd" immunity is hysterical bullsh*t.

And if this daughter gets measles while pregnant with your grandchild, guess what happens? Go on, guess. Btw, my parents deliberately exposed me to measles at one year old and I was sick a month because everything followed the measles. Now I have partial hearing loss and weak lungs for life because there can be complications. But I look fine and I bet everyone thinks I help prove its OK for kids to have measles. Most handicaps are invisible. Very few disabled people actually need a cane. Some need an inhaler and hearing aids are invisible now.

And if this daughter gets measles while pregnant with your grandchild, guess what happens? Go on, guess. Btw, my parents deliberately exposed me to measles at one year old and I was sick a month because everything followed the measles. Now I have partial hearing loss and weak lungs for life because there can be complications. But I look fine and I bet everyone thinks I help prove its OK for kids to have measles. Most handicaps are invisible. Very few disabled people actually need a cane. Some need an inhaler and hearing aids are invisible now.

irreverend mother:AbbeySomeone: hardinparamedic: Sometimes, the old ways are the best.

Like, for example, having an anti-vaxxer parent learn first hand that death or recovery are not the only two outcomes of Vaccine-preventable diseases. Sometimes, they just live their lives with crippling neurological disabilities thanks to Measles Encephalitis.

We, in the modern world, have become unacustomed (thankfully) to the scenes that plagued the United States in the 1920s and 30s, namely of Children's hospitals overflowing with people dying from diseases like Diptheria, Polio, and Whooping Cough. In a way, vaccines therefor have become a victim of their own success.

Tell ya what - my daughter was raised with many alternative or hippie belief systems and environments. Most of the kids were unvaccinated and top of the chart healthy.If children are breast fed and raised in a healthy environment they don't have these issues."Herd" immunity is hysterical bullsh*t.

And if this daughter gets measles while pregnant with your grandchild, guess what happens? Go on, guess. Btw, my parents deliberately exposed me to measles at one year old and I was sick a month because everything followed the measles. Now I have partial hearing loss and weak lungs for life because there can be complications. But I look fine and I bet everyone thinks I help prove its OK for kids to have measles. Most handicaps are invisible. Very few disabled people actually need a cane. Some need an inhaler and hearing aids are invisible now.

So, because you are defective you feel that you can blame others? Wrong! Doesn't work that way.m I had 3 years of being absolutely crippled. I won't listen to any bs stories.

AbbeySomeone:So, because you are defective you feel that you can blame others? Wrong! Doesn't work that way.m I had 3 years of being absolutely crippled. I won't listen to any bs stories.

Your BS story doesn't invalidate his. That's why we can't rely on anecdotal evidence and instead look to the mountains of evidence that show herd immunity is real (down to the percentages needed to keep up that immunity for various diseases) and anti-vaxers are irrational idiots.

I found my personal experiences with anti-vaxxers troubling. The two that I know personally are a former daughter-in-law and mother of my grandchild and a former granddaughter-in-law and mother of my great grandchild. In both cases their mothers are in the medical field, nurses of some sort, and encourage them to avoid vaccines.

So, I'm sad to say, I have former in-laws that are just as foolish asAbbeySomeone on this subject.

/had measles when I was 6//had chicken pox when I was 25///chicken pox gave me over a week of 102°+ fever and delirium////as well as the scars of course

Heh. Last December I was out shopping during the day on a Sunday. By that evening I started feeling like I had a cold. Monday morning I woke up feeling like hell. I called a doctor and got an appointment for 5pm. I drove myself there and after he checked me out said that I had a fever of 104.5 F. I went from normal to approaching the risk of permanent damage in about 12 hours. That was one nasty strain of Flu. I really regretted being too lazy to get the Flu shot when my work offered it for free a month prior.

CSB1: I got chicken pox at age 17. My temperature rose over 102 F and dozens pustules formed everywhere, no matter how annoying the location. I still have one scar from the attack. It could have been worse...

CSB2: My boss caught the chicken pox at about the same time that his mother died. He was 40 years old. It attacked his liver, and he needed a transplant.

If chicken pox hits during elementary school, usually it's just mild discomfort and a week or two off school waiting for the pustules to scab over. If it waits, you'll be bedridden, covered with itchy pustules in unmentionable places and it could kill you. Then you get to play the Shingles Lottery as you grow older or undergo severe stress.

i thought this was common knowledge. this is why i had to bathe several times with my cousin when i was maybe 7. this is why it is, or recently was before everyone got vaccinated, common to have 'chicken pox parties' where lots of kids would sleep over and be encouraged to spread contagions.

the worst part about chicken pox if your parents' are sane enough to make sure you get it in elementary school is calamine lotion. icky!

There were no MMR vaccines when I was a kid. We hard barely gotten the polio vaccine when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. Every one I grew up with suffered the measles, mumps, and chicken pox with no lasting effects.While I strongly agree with preventive vaccines, are the childhood diseases of my youth more dangerous today?

No, but the knowledge of what happens with them is more widespread. And the availability of vaccines has made the diseases rare enough that they get publicized.

We must be roughly the same age since I got the polio vaccine in 1st grade. Back then, several thousand children died of measles every year, but it didn't get reported on the national news because that was normal and expected. It's like auto accidents today...you don't see much about them because we expect 35,000 people a year to die from them and it's much better than the 50,000 a year that died when we were young.

Today, instead of several thousand deaths a year from measles, we have fewer than ten and every one of them makes the national news.

Like, for example, having an anti-vaxxer parent learn first hand that death or recovery are not the only two outcomes of Vaccine-preventable diseases. Sometimes, they just live their lives with crippling neurological disabilities thanks to Measles Encephalitis.

We, in the modern world, have become unacustomed (thankfully) to the scenes that plagued the United States in the 1920s and 30s, namely of Children's hospitals overflowing with people dying from diseases like Diptheria, Polio, and Whooping Cough. In a way, vaccines therefor have become a victim of their own success.

Tell ya what - my daughter was raised with many alternative or hippie belief systems and environments. Most of the kids were unvaccinated and top of the chart healthy.If children are breast fed and raised in a healthy environment they don't have these issues."Herd" immunity is hysterical bullsh*t.

As I mentioned earlier, the kid I knew growing up had parents who were Steiner/Waldorf enthusiasts (as were mine). They were all about running around outside, no vaxes (my parents did vax us, however) eating organic, breastfeeding until the age of two if not later, all that sort of thing. We were all pretty healthy, as was this kid -- until his family caught measles from God knows whom. They all recovered just fine -- except for him. Were they all healthy enough except for him? Did his mother make one tiny mistake or oversight, or not breastfeed him quite long enough? I doubt it -- he got a powerful, nasty virus which took a wrong turn and medicine was (and is) helpless against it. A strong child can disintegrate really fast. It doesn't feel like it should be true, but it is. I think it's similar to the mentality that says that holding on tight to your unbelted child in a car will keep him safe -- you can't imagine yourself ever letting go, but if you get into a nasty crash, the laws of physics will take over and your will won't be able to do anything to prevent being pulled apart from your child.

the801:i thought this was common knowledge. this is why i had to bathe several times with my cousin when i was maybe 7. this is why it is, or recently was before everyone got vaccinated, common to have 'chicken pox parties' where lots of kids would sleep over and be encouraged to spread contagions.

the worst part about chicken pox if your parents' are sane enough to make sure you get it in elementary school is calamine lotion. icky!

Of course avoiding infection entirely is the better choice, and luckily we have a chicken pox vaccine now. Shingles can be nasty, so better to never contract Chicken Pox in the first place.

Snarcoleptic_Hoosier:The secret is to call the anti-vaccine peoples' bluff: Invent a vaccine for autism.

Well, that's what all this nonsense is about, of course. If there is a discrete, actual cause of autism, then there is a discrete, actual cure. If autism is "caused" by, say, thimerosol in vaccines, then take it out and viola! No more autism! And parents can comfort themselves with the knowledge that no parent will ever again suffer as they have suffered. And when that didn't pan out---why, it must be the vaccines themselves! Get rid of vaccines and viola! No more autism! And parents can, etc.

Parents of children with autism, like any chronic neurological disorder, want desperately to believe there is a) a solid, physical reason for what caused their child's problem, because that would mean b) there is at least hope for a cure. Or at least ending the curse of autism. So they latch on to anything that offers that hope. The fact that fewer kids are getting vaccinated--and some unvaccinated kids are still turning up with autism--and the autism rate is still going up--means NOTHING to people who want to believe. They'll rationalize anything if it means hope of a cure. Only when everyone on the planet has never been vaccinated and we still have autism will these poor fools accept that it was something else.

Then there are antivaxxers like our own dear Abbey, who are also anti-Big Pharma and want to believe that a healthy wholesome lifestyle will keep the evil germs away. That's just today's gloss on the old back-to-nature movement I grew up with that if you ate raw food and drank raw milk and wore raw fibers you'd never get sick. These folks are a Bible page away from the Christian Scientists who want to pray the bad away. I should probably just start ducking the brickbats that should begin flying any second now, but it's all the same fear of science and faith in anything that's not "unnatural," really.

odinsposse:AbbeySomeone: So, because you are defective you feel that you can blame others? Wrong! Doesn't work that way.m I had 3 years of being absolutely crippled. I won't listen to any bs stories.

Your BS story doesn't invalidate his. That's why we can't rely on anecdotal evidence and instead look to the mountains of evidence that show herd immunity is real (down to the percentages needed to keep up that immunity for various diseases) and anti-vaxers are irrational idiots.

I make the choice of what my kids are inoculated for based on what they are likely to be exposed to. That means being aware of data, and when that data changes, then our choice may change as a result. Very rare for measles in this area, so we don't vax for it. The CDC and Texas Department of Health do the exact same thing - Hepatitis A Is only recommended or even available in certain counties. We don't live in one of the affected counties.

Smallpox is not routinely given as an immunization anymore but polio still is - although there hasn't been a true case of wild polio in the US for a few decades now.

I do not call myself anti vaccination because we do and have and will make the choice to vaccinate dependent upon the data I mentioned. Tetanus happens; my kids all got their DPaT.

My 12 and 13 year old kids never got chicken pox naturally, so they'll be getting that vaccination at their upcoming check up. They are also now encountering or will encounter in the near future new risk factors for hepatitis B, so they'll be getting that as well (namely, sexual contact).

We are lucky to so far have no issues with any pediatrician, including "those who don't take anti vax children". Both so far (changed once when we moved) were very professional and respected the data determination we presented them from sources such as the CDC. Wakefield is a hack and reminds me so much of the snake oil salesmen who insist that my daughters' autism can be cured with "insert flavor of the day here". And they were autistic before they were vaccinated. I see no valid connection between the two.

DrewCurtisJr:ladyfortuna: I'm starting to think that when I meet new people I should ask them if they are vaccinated against the usual, and if they say no, I'll just tell them to call me when they are.

How much confidence do you have in a "yes" answer? How many adults are aware of what vaccines they received as children and what boosters they might need?

Um, they SHOULD be aware. I couldn't get a job in a healthcare office without proving I had them. My mom kept a full immunization record for me and has it in my baby book.

It's like adults who don't know what their blood type is. How do you NOT know? Go donate blood once and they'll tell you.

brimed03:What happened to the surgeon who published the Lancet article? I don't think we should punish research errors, but it sounds like he was incredibly negligent or criminally fibbing. Considering the effect of his paper on public health, should he face public charges, which might in turn reduce his adherents.

Anti-Vaxxers have been around long before that article came out, since vaccines really.

I've never been vaxxed and I was born in 86, granted my Aunt did get polio from the polio vaccine (when they used weakened viruses versus dead ones) so my parent's decided to not vaxx me and my brothers.

/Scared to get vaxxed now, not sure if I'll have an allergic reaction or whatnot//Kids will be vaxxed